Preparation of 2-mercaptobenzothiazole-labeled immuno-Au aggregates for SERS-based immunoassay

A detailed method for preparation of 2-mercaptobenzothiazole (MBT)-labeled immuno-Au aggregates as a novel Raman probe for SERS-based immunoassay has been proposed in this paper. The formation kinetics of gold aggregates induced by MBT and the impact of the amount of labeled reporter on the aggregation, as well as the fabrication of MBT-labeled immuno-Au aggregates were characterized comprehensively by UV–vis spectrophotometer. Meanwhile, a chain-like morphology of aggregates was monitored by TEM images. Experimental results show that this Raman tag can act as an efficient label and an enhanced Raman signal of SERS-based immunoassay can be obtained successfully with this novel probe. This work shows the method for the preparation of immune probe for SERS-based immunoassay using MBT as reporter and provides a reference for the preparation of immune probe with other Raman markers for multi-channel SERS-based immunoassay.